Poster © Warner Bros. Pictures. Shown at reduced size for review and commentary.
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GenreAction, Adventure & Fantasy
RatedPG-13
Runtime2 hr 23 mins
ReleasedDecember 21, 2018
StreamingSee Where to Watch
DirectorJames Wan
StarringJason Momoa, Amber Heard, Willem Dafoe
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Aquaman (2018)
| ▶Stream It | ★The Numbers |
| 🎫Get Tickets | ✎Edit History |
| iIMDb Profile | %Rotten Tomatoes |
| WWikipedia | LLetterboxd |
| TTMDB | +Add to Top 8 |
| Aquaman's Details | |
| Genre | Action, Adventure & Fantasy |
| Rated | PG-13 |
| Released | 11/26/2018 (Empire, Leicester Square); 12/21/2018 (United States) |
| Streaming | See Where to Watch on this page. |
| Running Time | 2 hr 23 mins |
| Budget | $160–200M (reported) |
| Box Office | Updated daily from Box Office Mojo. See the numbers below. |
| Based On | Characters from DC |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Aquaman's Interests | |
| General | Tridents, lighthouses, glowing reefs, sharks with saddles, an octopus on drums. |
| Music | Rupert Gregson-Williams. Plus a Pitbull track built on a Toto sample. |
| Movies | Justice League (2017). Where Arthur first teamed up with the big leagues. |
| Television | SpongeBob SquarePants. The other famous underwater kingdom. |
| Heroes | Vulko. Trained a teenage Arthur to fight and never lost his patience. |
| Aquaman's Crew | |
| Director | James Wan |
| Writers | Will Beall, Geoff Johns (story), James Wan (story), Will Beall (story) |
| Producers | Peter Safran, Rob Cowan |
| Cinematography | Don Burgess |
| Music | Rupert Gregson-Williams |
| Edited By | Kirk Morri |
| Production | Warner Bros. Pictures, DC Films, The Safran Company |
| Distributed By | Warner Bros. Pictures |
An octopus plays the drums in this movie, and it’s not even the weirdest thing in the arena. Armies ride into battle on seahorses. Patrick Wilson’s Ocean Master yells about the surface in a helmet shaped like a fancy shower fixture. The dialogue is pure cheese, and the 143 minutes feel like James Wan had a list of ocean ideas and refused to cut a single one. But it knows. Jason Momoa plays Arthur like a guy who’d rather be at the bar than on a throne, and he’s charming enough to sell it. Nicole Kidman’s opening fight in a tiny lighthouse kitchen is legit great. The trench sequence, with one flare lighting up a wall of sea monsters, is the best image in any DC movie. It made $1.15 billion worldwide on a reported $160M to $200M budget, so somebody wanted the seahorses. A 5.6 because it’s a dumb, loud, gorgeous fish tank, and I mean every word. $507 says you see an octopus at the aquarium and wonder if it has a drum kit.
What works: Jason Momoa’s laid-back charm, Nicole Kidman’s lighthouse fight and the flare-lit trench sequence.
What doesn’t: The dialogue is pure cheese, and at 143 minutes it refuses to cut a single ocean idea.
Who it’s for: Anyone who wants big, loud, colorful undersea nonsense and a hero with zero interest in royalty.
Spoilers
Arthur claims the lost trident, beats Orm and finds his mother Atlanna alive in the hidden sea where it was kept. He becomes king, and Black Manta survives to swear revenge another day.
Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) is the son of a Maine lighthouse keeper (Temuera Morrison) and Atlanna (Nicole Kidman), queen of Atlantis, which makes him half human, fluent in sea creature and totally uninterested in royalty. Then Mera (Amber Heard), a princess from another undersea kingdom, surfaces with bad news: his half-brother King Orm (Patrick Wilson) is rallying the oceans to go to war with the surface. Her plan is for Arthur to claim the throne himself, with backup from his old mentor Vulko (Willem Dafoe). James Wan directs. One hundred forty-three minutes, mostly underwater.
Anyone who can hold their breath through a family reunion. Bring a trident.
David Kane / Black Mantaphoto: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
| Jason Momoa | Arthur Curry / Aquaman |
| Amber Heard | Mera |
| Willem Dafoe | Nuidis Vulko |
| Patrick Wilson | Orm Marius / Ocean Master |
| Dolph Lundgren | Nereus |
| Yahya Abdul-Mateen II | David Kane / Black Manta |
| Ludi Lin | Captain Murk |
| Temuera Morrison | Tom Curry |
| Nicole Kidman | Atlanna |
| Ilya Melnikoff | Russian submarine captain |
| Kyryl Koltsov | Russian submarine crew member |
- (cur | prev) 14:30, 18 October 2026 DataBot +40 Numbers refreshed: IMDb users 6.8 / 10 (561,184 votes) → 6.8 / 10 (561,207 votes).
- (cur | prev) 14:30, 17 October 2026 DataBot +480 Numbers refreshed: Worldwide box office $1.15B; Domestic box office $335.1M; Opening weekend $67.9M; Profit / loss (est.) +$306M; Rotten Tomatoes 66%; CinemaScore A−; box office chart updated; Rotten Tomatoes critics 66% (50 reviews); Metacritic 55 / 100; CinemaScore A−; IMDb users 6.8 / 10 (561,184 votes); movie.guru score 5.7.
- (cur | prev) 12:00, 17 October 2026 DataBot +2,000 Profile created from Wikipedia and Box Office Mojo: cast, crew, release dates, budget, official trailer.